For the first half of July I felt somewhat flustered when it came to
writing. After a month of intensive
writing on one project I thought about the different writing projects that I
have and wasn’t entirely sure about what I should be doing. I used to be able to write a little bit of
one and write a little bit of another and float between the two with ease, but this
month that wasn’t working so well.
Finally I decided that what I needed was a week of brainstorming the
projects that I’m most interested in working on at this time, so that’s what I
did last week and at the beginning of this one.
I’ll continue to brainstorm and outline one of the projects, as I am
planning to work on that in August. I
put another on the backburner until September, when I will figure out when I’d
like to focus more attention on it. That
leaves me with two different projects to focus on right now. One is a project that I mentioned a few
months ago: sprucing up an old novel that I absolutely love. The other is researching and outlining a
novel that has been slowly taking shape in my mind for over a year now. Finally I have enough of it figured that out
that I can start jotting down details and making plans for it.
of a novel and write without an outline.
Of course, I always had specific events in mind but how to get from one
event to the other wasn’t clearly mapped out.
Halfway through I’d write a more detailed outline and finish out the
novel. Lately that hasn’t been working
for me and I’ve found myself outlining from the start. Of course, I still leave room for spontaneity
in the novel and if I decide some things need to change I let them change, but
I do like having a road map from the start.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting old
